The Dawn of Christian History: Unveiling the Story of the Early Church

Catholic Answers

We are a Catholic apologetics organization that is committed to explaining and defending the Catholic faith. Our audience enjoys our popular radio show, website and forums, magazine, books, CDs, and videos, through which we share the Faith across the country and the world.

We are looking for a cover design for an upcoming DVD product. It is a 90 min presentation about the beginnings of the early Christian Church after the events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The film is titled, “The Dawn of Christian History: Unveiling the Story of the Early Church.” The target audience for this product is Catholic Answers' core customer, which is made up of people who love and practice their Catholic Faith and have a desire to learn more about their Faith so that they are better equipped to share it with friends, family members, co-workers and society. The cover should catch the eye of both the young and adult age. It is for families, teachers, activists, and the more.

Our brand maintains a respected status recognized by our audience. Even those who oppose our views appreciate our respectful approach to dialogue and our defense of the Catholic faith.

In this dvd, Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin introduces the viewer to the beginnings of the early Christian church by taking them through the Acts of the Apostles (Book of Acts) from the New Testament. Along the way Jimmy tells a fascinating story stringing together the dates, locations, characters, and key events that make up the early history of the Church.

He doesn’t rely on his personal interpretation of the Scriptures or mere speculation, some of which fuels modern day skepticism about the truth of the biblical events and the mere existance of Jesus as a real figure. Instead Jimmy relies heavily on the text itself, scientific dating, which has been put forth by modern secular scientists, and the writings of famous non-Christian historians who lived around the time of the events in the Book of Acts.

The DVD lays out for the viewer how the Book of Acts is a very trustworthy source for learning about the early Christian Church.

In the presentation Jimmy reveals:
-How the ministry of Jesus fits into real history
-How the early Church got started and then experienced explosive growth
-How even tiny details never noticed mesh together to show that the New Testament is giving us real history

With his characteristic wit and passion as a master storyteller, Jimmy takes you through an exciting detective story that reveals how history supports the Christian Faith.
With Jimmy’s new DVD, you can sit down with doubting friends and loved ones and show them why the New Testament is trustworthy and thus why the Christian Faith has a solid basis

The DVD cover has a few requirements, and we have a few ideas for possible creative directions:

The title and the name of the author should appear both on the front and backcover.

Title: The Dawn of Christian History
Subtitle: Unveiling the Story of the Early Church
Author: Jimmy Akin

Visual design is pretty open-ended. Go to shop.catholic.com and take a look at the DVD products there to get a sense of what our brand and style are like. This should have a similar look and feel to our other DVD products.

We have a few concept ideas to begin your inspiration:

Key terms for this product to use for inspiration are:

History, Early Church, Catholic Church, St. Stephen, Jesus, Resurrection, Crucifixion, St.Paul/Saul,

-COVER CONCEPT #1. A collage of different characters/locations from the Acts of the Apostles (Book of Acts) (Paul, St. Luke, Stephen, John the Baptist, Jesus, Apostles, Tiberious Ceasar, Piantus Pilate, Antioch, Cypress, Crete). An example from our shopsite:
https://shop.catholic.com/the-real-…olic-myths

Concept Idea #2 I have attached three images of the conversion of St.Paul on the road to Damascus. Feel free to crop, zoom, manipulate image to come up with a unique creative perspective of the product and subject matter. Open to other images to be used. We have an account with Adobe Stock, if you find an image you like there, but we are open to purchasing from another stock site.

Concept Idea #3 I have attached an image of "Pentacost" a pivotal event in the history of the Christian Faith. Crop, zoom, manipulate image to come up with a unique creative perspective of the product and subject matter. Open to other images of "Pentacost" to be used.

Concept Idea #4 Focussing on the title as key design element identify some one creative element to place in center of cover that is loosely associated with some theme of the product. A couple of examples from our shopsite:
"The Problem of Evil" http://shop.catholic.com/the-proble…-evil.html
"Defending the Faith" http://shop.catholic.com/defending-…icism.html

Concept Idea #5 (classical look) Use supplied images or research and locate an image that represents Church History. Set it on cover with textured background, creative title treatment, and decorative borders, and color palette drawn from colors in the art image. Refer to products at Catholic.com "Heaven: Obstacles and Opportunities." http://shop.catholic.com/mp3-heaven…ies-1.html
"New Eve: Mediatrix and Mother" http://shop.catholic.com/new-eve-me…r-set.html

Cocept Idea #6 (Contempoary/Clean look) Focussing more on the idea of Dawn and Christianity, use clean imagery (Cross, sunrise, dawn). But put enough creative flair to it so it does not look like just a stock image with the title put on top of.

We are open to any concept you may be inspired to create.

*IMPORTANT*
This is a DVD product, so the dimensions are important. I have attached the template file for you to work with. Keep in mind, what we want is a front cover. The spine and back cover will be created by you in a later phase of the process once the front cover is finalized and locked down.

We expect to go through a few rounds of revisions once a concept direction is selected.
We look forward to seeing what you come up with!